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Lexus F performance SUV could be in the works

Amid the wave of SUVs and crossovers that has crashed down on the industry, several high-performance sporting SUVs have washed up and started to fill a separate growing niche. It's an idea that Lexus is contemplating, according to a new report, with a possible F-branded utility vehicle focusing on either on- or off-road specialties. At the Rolex 24 in Daytona, Florida, Motor1 learned that incorporating a crossover or SUV into Lexus' F performance division has been under "active discussion." That doesn't necessarily mean a hotted-up utility vehicle, however. According to the report, F could translate to a different type of performance on the SUV, specifically for off-road capabilities. Using the F badge in this way would be a huge departure from what it has meant during the brand's 10-year history. Lexus currently offers the sport-focused RC F and the GS F, with an LC F expected soon. Should Lexus decide to lean further into the sport performance methodology with its utility vehicles, the newly released UX and the NX would likely be the top candidates. That said, Lexus does have two highly competent off-road vehicles in the Lexus GX and LX. Plus, Toyota, Lexus' parent brand, has been producing some of the best off-road vehicles on the market for years. As of now, this is just talk, but the way SUV and crossover sales have been going, we'd expect an F-branded Lexus SUV in the near future. Which kind of enthusiast it's for remains to be seen. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

European car sales up 8% in February

Three weeks ago an analyst increased projections for European car sales this year, expecting them to climb three percent compared to last year instead of 2.7 percent. That number is a postive sign after years of hard times but it turns out February was especially good, overall European sales climbing eight percent on a wave of southern European recovery and discounts - and this comes after five months of gains including January's 7.2-percent jump over the year before.
The only country of Europe's five largest markets to post a decline was France, just as it did in January, Germany, the UK and Italy posting solid double-digit numbers, Spain rocking the charts with an 18-percent increase because of a government program to encourage trade-ins.
The only brand to miss the wave was Volkswagen, dropping 0.8 percent as it watched the double-digit growth at sister brands Audi, Seat and Skoda lift the Volkswagen Group sales up by seven-percent. Peugeot overcame flat sales at Citroën to improve the group by 3.5 percent, BMW and the Mercedes-Benz/Smart combo rose by four percent, the Fiat group jumped 5.8 percent, Ford was up 11 percent, the Renault Group 11.5 percent, General Motors 12 percent and the Toyota clan by 14 percent.

Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.